


To Be Set Free

by Daerwyn



Series: A Collection of Drabbles by Helmaninquiel [6]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 11:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5089142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daerwyn/pseuds/Daerwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine being beside Eomer when he finds Eowyn unconscious on the battlefield and trying to check whether she's still alive but Eomer not letting you because he can't let go of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Set Free

Today had been a day you worked your hardest in decades. The field ran with bodies, souls that you had to ferry and take to their respective worlds to rest. Souls that you had to comfort in their brief moments of confusion for their new lives.

The elves were the purest, with their souls being the brightest. Light, airy and so easily collected that she did not need to do any coaxing from this world. Perhaps it was because the elves knew that there was a chance at a second life if they were chosen by the Valar. A chance for reincarnation in the Undying Lands. A realm that you only had visited a few times, when mortals were brought there.

The Orcs were the darkest and heaviest to carry. Black and sticky like tar. THey were stubborn, lingering in their deceased bodies with a vigor that matched them in life. And once they had stepped on, there were usually two more behind them. Lately, you had noticed more and more Orcs spring up in the realm of the living, and nearly just as many fall. You did not know if it was a cycle of the living world. It had been so long since you had been apart of it. But it was unusual, and usually meant evil was brewing. They had been breeding so quickly, that most did not even have names or knew of their parents. Machines for war.

They were the saddest creatures you had ferried.

It was just as sad, when you harvested the souls of men that were just as light as elves. It meant that they had led innocent lives, with very little wrong doing. That they had done no evil or harmed no good. And it pained you when you harvested the souls of men that were just as heavy and dark as an orc. That they had chosen wrong in life, and they had killed those that did not deserve to die. But once they realized what had become of them, they did not fight it as hard as they did thinking they were still alive.

Everyone saw you different, saw you as one of their own race. An Orc female, a dwarrodam, a woman, or a elven maid. You changed so much that you did not remember what you were before. It did not matter anymore who you were before.

All you knew now was that you were Death.

You knelt over each body individually, yet all of them at once, some bodies quicker than others, but the rest stubborn.

But only one would not let you get close to them. There was a man clutching her, and his soul was such a brilliant golden light it was as if the sun had fallen to earth and embraced her. A woman on a battlefield. It had been a long time since you had seen it. Not since the days of a dragon shot out of the sky.

He was murmuring her name, as if praying for her to wake. “Eowyn.” You knelt beside the man, staring at the girl, trying to distinguish her aura for his. But you could not. She was whispering the name back, though not to him, to herself, in her mind.

Eomer.

The famous, glorious horse, in the tongue of men. A Rider of Rohan. He wore the regalia proudly. As did she. The horse lover.

You had seen her before, kneeling over her cousin’s wounded body as he laid dying in his chambers, trying to heal him from a sickness that no mortal man had ever overcome. But yet she hoped.

You had met them both together when they were young, their father discarded in battle by the enemy, and their mother had wasted away in her grief, her love for her husband too great. And yet these children endured. And one soul beside you seemed to want to reach out to them, to promise them things were alright.

Theoden. You only could gather that he was related somehow, but you did not know. Your job did not make you all knowing, it just showed you the people that perished.

They had seen loss together. And this Eomer… He was to be the new King of Rohan, to be their successor. And yet he had lost everyone.

But he held her so fiercely that you could not see even her face. You could not see how much she had grown, nor how firmly held her soul was. He would not let her go.

You decided he would not have to. You could feel Theoden’s relief on your shoulder, and you rose, your hand resting on the head of the Princess of Rohan. And you gave her breath as you slowly exhaled.

Eowyn gasped and Eomer nearly dropped her, but she surged up, reaching for a sword. Eomer gripped her hand. “It is over, sister. It’s over.” Their embrace was touching. Full of love and apologies for all they had done to wrong each other in the past. All the lies that had been told as siblings often do. You stepped back from them, and closed your eyes. All that would die in the field today had died. And your job was finished.

You could only spare one.


End file.
